Ninety-three students of a school in Bandarawela police division have been hospitalized following medication poisoning, Police Media Unit said. The students displayed symptoms of medication poisoning after ingestion of pill administered by Haldummulla Medical Officer of Health's office (MOH).
They were rushed to Bandarawela and Diyatalawa Hospitals.
Bandarawela Police is conducting further investigations into the incident.
One month ago, a bit of musical whimsy staged a century ago was extracted and extrapolated upon a set of circumstances, which, in turn, fostered an outpouring of comment and diatribes. This should be a cause for surprise and it certainly was worrying in that this needless controversy illustrates a fragmented Lankan community and underscores the already existing lines of societal fracture.
On reflection over these recent eruptions of public distaste, poor taste and sullied decorum, one feels a sober analysis is apt. Discussing merits and demerits is outside of my province, but understanding the flow of the tide (and of what is revealed in the times past) would help. There may well be vultures that prey on culture, but that should hardly interest a nation of sentient beings whose real interest, as always, is about getting on and going on.
pic. John de Silva, as always, dapper in his ‘Western’ (!?) three -piece suit and tie, who, with all his affinity with the Sinhala renaissance, never sought to follow the lead of his cohort in adopting a ‘national’ dress or costume
The simple trigger happened to be a song that has the accepted title, “Dunno Budunge”. Context is EVERYTHING in connection with this song! As it stands, the title makes no sense at all. It forms an incomplete thought within Sinhala syntactical norms. These two words are the first in the opening line of verse of the first stanza of the lyric of a song that, by rights, should bear the title “Anurādha Nagaraya“. The subject and content in the lyric is just an idealized evocation of the idyllic grandeur of the capital city of Anuradhapura; and the song (yes, a mere song, not an oratorio, an incantation nor a profound sacred pronouncement nor extract from a philosophical treatise) was included in the stage play “Siri Sangabo“, popular in the first years of the 20th century (c. 1903) after its being staged at the Public Hall in Colombo.[i]
The paean starts with these two words, and continues “Dunno Budunge sri dharma skundha.” [literally: “Those that possess knowledge (dunno) of the weight and value (skundha=Mass/weight) of the Buddha’s teaching …..”]. Beyond these words, the remainder of the song refers not to the Teaching, nor the person of the Teacher, nor alludes to any aspect of the acts of devotion; but it does reveal a ‘pious’ sentiment as generated by seeing the beauteous aspect of the ancient capital city (kingdom) of Anuradhapura, which at the time the play was staged, lay in ruins and almost completely submerged under the jungle tide, save for the initial restorations affected by the Department of Archaeology established by writ of Her Majesty’s Government under Queen Victoria. The setting for the play is what takes matters back to the grandeur lost, when Lanka’s (Sinhala) kings ruled from the north central province.
2016-03-04 22 Two eyewitnesses of the controversial Rajagiriya accident had arrived at the Police Head Quarters today and handed over a written complaint where they had stated that the driver of the jeep at the time of the accident was Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka. Police Spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunasekara said Acting IGP Senior DIG S.M.Wickremesinghe had informed the police to send the written statements to Western Province Senior DIG Pujith Jayasundara. He said the Acting IGP Wickremesinghe had also informed Senior DIG Pujith Jayasundara to submit a report into the accident and allegations levelled against Minister Champika Ranawaka by the two eye witnesses. The two eye witnesses had arrived at the police HQ with their lawyers, police said. The accident took place on February 28 night in Rajagiriya, leaving two youths critically injured. The jeep which was involved in the accident had fled the scene and a person who claimed to be the driver of the jeep had surrendered to the Borella Police after about 20 minutes of the accident, said ASP Gunasekara. The person who apparently claimed to have been driving the jeep was produced in court and released on surety bail. Speaking at an event, Minister Ranawaka had said it was the driver of his ministry who had driven the ministry’s jeep at the time the accident took place last Sunday. Police investigations have not yet found whether there had been a change of driver in the jeep involved in the accident before it reached the Borella Police and that the driver had surrendered to the Welikada Police. (Piyumi Fonseka)
Investigations into the payment of a Rs. 1.5 million allowance to an air hostess who had been attached to the president’s office during the Rajapaksa regime are to be handed over to the FCID.
She had been attached there due to her close friendship with, and with the knowledge of, MP Namal Rajapaksa. Only a serving air hostess can be paid such an allowance, but she had received it in violation of that requirement.
The presidential investigation commission has found this during investigations.
Due to the wants of Namal, the then secretary to the president Lalith Weeratunga had informed in writing that she be paid the Rs. 1.5 million allowance. She had gained the opportunity to get posted to the president’s office and to receive this allowance due to her close friendship with Namal. The president’s office had paid her the allowance for three years.
With the overthrowing of the government, she was removed from the president’s office and was returned to SriLankan Airlines, where she is a supervisor of air hostesses now.
Students Supporting Israel’s Rudy Rochman with billionaire donor to anti-Palestinian causes Sheldon Adelson. (via Facebook)
Students at Columbia University say that a display by Students Supporting Israel includes racist and anti-Semitic imagery and messaging. (via Facebook)
Students at Columbia University have expressed concern to administrators about what they see as racist and demeaning displays on campus from a group led by a soldier involved in Israel’s 2014 massacre in Gaza.
The Columbia University chapter of Students Supporting Israel this week put up large placards on College Walk, a central thoroughfare at the prestigious New York institution.
The display was meant to counter a model of Israel’s separation wall erected by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and a Jewish Voice for Peace information table as part of Israeli Apartheid Week.
Students Supporting Israel is funded by a prominent Islamophobe.
Now a continuing education student in general studies, Rochman posted a video on Facebook of himself and members of his unit dancing and singing “The Jewish people lives” just as they were about to enter Gaza to take part in the slaughter.
More recently, Rochman has championed revenge against Palestinians. In the context of the upsurge in confrontations since late last year between Palestinians and Israel’s occupation in the West Bank, Rochmancalled on the Israeli goverment to “please take out the trash already, the smell is unbearable!”
Rochman also posted a photo of himself with Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who bankrolls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Republican Party.
The fraternity’s University of Chicago chapter recently made headlines over leaked emails revealing members’ racist views of African Americans and Muslims.
Another member of Students Supporting Israel at Columbia is Alexandra Markus, a continuing education student who has referred to Jewish Voice for Peace activists as “kapos,” a term used to describe Jews who collaborated in the Nazi genocide during the Second World War.
Markus has also offered to help Canary Mission, the shadowy McCarthyite group that collects information about Palestine solidarity activists on campus with the aim of harming their future careers.
Rudy Rochman and Students Supporting Israel at Columbia University did not respond to requests for comment from The Electronic Intifada.
By Simon DenyerMarch 4 BEIJING — China said Friday that its military spending will grow by 7 to 8 percent in 2016, the smallest increase in six years and a lower figure than many experts had expected, reflecting a slowing economy and a cut in troop numbers.
Although experts say actual spending is significantly higher than the official budget, China’s military spending is still dwarfed by that of the United States, both in monetary terms and as a proportion of the overall economy.
Nevertheless, China’s growing military muscle and its robust assertion of its territorial claims in the South China Sea have sparked concerns throughout Asia, helping propel jumps in defense spending in countries including India, Japan and Vietnam.
Fu Ying, spokeswoman for China’s parliament, said the budget increase reflected the country’s national defense needs as well as the state of its economy and fiscal revenue.
The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, had argued this week for double-digit growth in military spending. It also called for China to deploy more weaponry to the South China Sea in response to what it said was Washington’s growing military presence there.
Ni Lexiong, a professor of political science and a military expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said he had expected an increase of 12 to 15 percent in response to rising regional tensions.
“Obviously it shows that China wants to demonstrate to the West, including the U.S. and the neighboring countries that it has disputes with, that China sincerely wants to solve the problems through peaceful means,” he said. “But the second reason is that China’s economy is bad indeed.”
China’s President Xi Jinping is trying to modernize and streamline the country’s military, seeking to make it more effective and simultaneously curb corruption. The People’s Liberation Army is being trimmed by 300,000 troops, but the 2-million-strong force is still the world’s largest standing army.
The increase would be the first single-digit boost in defense spending since 2010, when the budget rose 7.5 percent, and is below the 10.1 percent boost in last year’s budget. It is roughly in line with official economic growth of 6.9 percent in 2015 and would take the military budget to around $150 billion, about a quarter of Pentagon spending of nearly $600 billion last year.
In relation to the overall economy, China’s official defense budget amounts to 1.3 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 3.1 percent in the United States.
China has been repeatedly criticized by the United States for a massive land-reclamation effort in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
But at a news conference ahead of the opening session of China’s National People’s Congress, Fu rejected Washington’s argument that China is militarizing the strategically important waters.
“Talking about militarization, if you look at it carefully, most of the advanced aircraft and warships passing through the South China Sea belong to the United States,” she said.
Fu argued that President Obama’s strategic rebalance to Asia, as well as recent U.S. naval operations, with warships sailing close to Chinese-controlled islands in the disputed Spratly chain, had raised tensions and heightened emotions.
“Chinese people think that it’s not good that the U.S. sent military ships to areas so close to Spratly Islands to show off its military, and this very much disgusts the Chinese people,” she said. “Originally on the Spratly issue, the United States said that it did not take sides. But the acts and words of the United States now are stimulating intense emotions in many people, which draws a big question mark over the motives of the United States.”
The United States says its naval operations are designed to underline the principle of freedom of navigation through international waters and insists it takes no sides in the territorial dispute.
This week, the U.S. Navy said it had dispatched an aircraft carrier and several other ships to the South China Sea on what was described as a routine patrol. The carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, arrived in the South China Sea on Tuesday, in a region where China has recently deployed surface-to-air missiles and fighter jets, and is believed to be building a military radar facility.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that China’s actual military spending is more than 50 percent above the budgeted figure when items such as military research and development, arms imports, military construction and pension costs are taken into account.
In 2014, the institute’s broader measure of military spending scored China as spending 2.1 percent of GDP compared to the United States at 3.5 percent.
Gu Jinglu contributed to this report.
Simon Denyer is The Post’s bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan.
( March 4, 2016, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) At this moment you could be anywhere, doing anything. Instead you sit alone before a screen. So what’s stopping us from doing what we want? Being where we want to be?
At this moment you could be anywhere, doing anything. Instead you sit alone before a screen. So what’s stopping us from doing what we want? Being where we want to be?
Each day we wake up in the same room and follow the same path, to live the same day as yesterday. Yet at one time each day was a new adventure. Along the way something changed. Before our days were timeless, now our days are scheduled.
Is this what it means to be grown up? To be free? But are we really free?
Food, water, land.
The very elements we need to survive are owned by corporations. There’s no food for us on trees, no freshwater in streams, no land to build a home. If you try and take what the Earth provides you’ll be locked away. So we obey their rules.
We discover the world through a textbook. For years we sit and regurgitate what we’re told. Tested and graded like subjects in a lab. Raised not to make a difference in this world, raised to be no different. Smart enough to do our job but not to question why we do it. So we work and work, left with no time to live the life we work for. Until a day comes when we are too old to do our job. It is here we are left to die. Our children take our place in the game.
To us our path is unique, but together we are nothing more than fuel. The fuel that powers the elite. The elite who hide behind the logos of corporations. This is their world. And their most valuable resource is not in the ground. It is us.
We build their cities, we run their machines, we fight their wars. After all, money isn’t what drives them. It’s power. Money is simply the tool they use to control us. Worthless pieces of paper we depend on to feed us, move us, entertain us.
They gave us money and in return we gave them the world. Where there were trees that cleaned our air are now factories that poison it. Where there was water to drink, is toxic waste that stinks. Where animals ran free, are factory farms where they are born and slaughtered endlessly for our satisfaction. Over a billion people are starving, despite us having enough food for everybody. Where does it all go? 70% of the grain we grow is fed to fatten the animals you eat for dinner. Why help the starving? You can’t profit off them.
We are like a plague sweeping the earth, tearing apart the very environment that allows us to live. We see everything as something to be sold, as an object to be owned. But what happens when we have polluted the last river? Poisoned the last breath of air? Have no oil for the trucks that bring us our food? When will we realize money can’t be eaten, that it has no value?
We aren’t destroying the planet. We are destroying all life on it. Every year thousands of species go extinct. And time is running out before we’re next. If you live in America there’s a 41% chance you’ll get cancer. Heart disease will kill one out of three Americans. We take prescription drugs to deal with these problems, but medical care is the third leading cause of death behind cancer and heart disease. We’re told everything can be solved by throwing money at scientists so they can discover a pill to make our problems go away. But the drug companies and cancer societies rely on our suffering to make a profit. We think we’re running for a cure, but really we’re running away from the cause. Our body is a product of what we consume and the food we eat is designed purely for profit. We fill ourselves with toxic chemicals. The bodies of animals infested with drugs and diseases. But we don’t see this. The small group of corporations that own the media don’t want us to. Surrounding us with a fantasy we’re told is reality.
It’s funny to think humans once thought the earth was the center of the universe. But then again, now we see ourselves as the center of the planet. We point to our technology and say we’re the smartest. But do computers, cars, and factories really illustrate how intelligent we are? Or do they show how lazy we’ve become. We put this “civilized” mask on. But when you strip that away what are we?
How quickly we forget only within past hundred years did we allow women to vote; allow blacks to live as equals. We act as if we are all-knowing beings, yet there is much we fail to see. We walk down the street ignoring all the little things. The eyes who stare. The stories they share. Seeing everything as a background to ‘me’.
Perhaps we fear we’re not alone. That we are a part of a much bigger picture. But we fail to make the connection. We’re okay killing pigs, cows, chickens, strangers from foreign lands. But not our neighbours, not our dogs, our cats, those we have come to love and understand. We call other creatures stupid yet we point to them to justify our actions. But does killing simply because we can, because we always have, make it right? Or does it show how little we’ve learned. That we continue to act out of primal aggression rather than thought and compassion.
One day, this sensation we call life will leave us. Our bodies will rot, our valuables recollected. Yesterday’s actions all that remain. Death constantly surrounds us, still it seems so distant from our everyday reality. We live in a world on the verge of collapse. The wars of tomorrow will have no winners. For violence will never be the answer; it will destroy every possible solution.
If we all look at our innermost desire, we will see our dreams are not so different. We share a common goal. Happiness. We tear the world apart looking for joy, without ever looking within ourselves. Many of the happiest people are those who own the least. But are we really so happy with our iPhones, our big houses, our fancy cars?
We’ve become disconnected. Idolizing people we’ve never met. We witness the extraordinary on screens but ordinary everywhere else. We wait for someone to bring change without ever thinking of changing ourselves.
Presidential elections might as well be a coin toss. It’s two sides of the same coin. We choose which face we want and the illusion of choice, of change is created. But the world remains the same. We fail to realize the politicians don’t serve us; they serve those who fund them into power.
We need leaders, not politicians. But in this world of followers, we have forgotten to lead ourselves. Stop waiting for change and be the change you want to see. We didn’t get to this point by sitting on our asses. The human race survived not because we are fastest or the strongest, but because we worked together.
We have mastered the act of killing. Now let’s master the joy of living.
This isn’t about saving the planet. The planet will be here whether we are or not. Earth has been around for billions of years, each of us will be lucky to last eighty. We are a flash in time, but our impact is forever.
I often wished I lived in an age before computers, when we didn’t have screens to distract us.
But I realize there’s one reason why this is the only time I want to be alive. Because here today, we have an opportunity we never had before. The internet gives us the power to share a message and unite millions around the world. While we still can we must use our screens to bring us closer together, rather than farther apart.
For better or worse, our generation will determine the future of life on this planet. We can either continue to serve this system of destruction until no memory of our existence remains. Or we can wake up. Realize we aren’t evolving upwards, but rather falling down…we just have screens in our faces so we don’t see where we’re heading.
This present moment is what every step, every breath and every death has led to. We are the faces of all who came before us. And now it is our turn. You can choose to carve your own path or follow the road countless others have already taken.
Life is not a movie. The script isn’t already written. We are the writers.
This is Your Story, Their Story, Our Story.
Written by Spencer Cathcart – http://theliewelive.blogspot.com
People queue at a bakery in Caracas on February 25, 2016. They have to wait hours to get some subsidised milk, cooking oil, milk or flour — with some bakeries rationing their bread production and others selling no bread at all.(AFP Photo)
In Venezuela, bread is literally the prime concern in the economic life of the people. There are long queues for bread currently at bakeries which are desperately short of wheat since the country is heavily oil dependent and does not produce the commodity which is the ‘Daily Bread’ of the majority of people in the West. Venezuela is one country where the present drop in world oil prices is taking an unbearably heavy toll. If the present decline in oil prices continues, there is no doubt that the majority of oil producing countries would be crippled by unprecedented material hardships. That is, 'Bread' would prove a major issue.
Needless to say, it is mainly the ordinary people of the OPEC countries who would be badly affected by this oil price drop. Some of the ruling elites of these states, such as those of Saudi Arabia, apparently, know on which side their ‘Bread is buttered’ because they are in league with the West in its current military involvement in Syria. However, for the majority of people in these oil producing countries the pursuit of ‘Bread’ could very well turn out to be a matter of life and death, as is the case for the Venezuelan people, as the oil price crisis begins to kick-in. In Eastern and Southern Africa, children in their hundreds, are dying of malnourishment.
From the viewpoint of the IS and other terror organizations, currently stalking the Middle East and parts of Africa, the timing of their destructive operations could not have been better. For, to the extent to which states opposed to them divert resources from ‘Bread’ to ‘Guns’, to the same degree would popular disaffection with the governments concerned mount. Thus is the task of making the ordinary people hostile towards the governments collaborating to crush these terror groups, rendered very much easier.
The rising refugee influx from the Middle East to some major European states further compounds these problems confronting the major actors in the current bloody, West-led face-off with terror. Finding the ‘Bread’ in sufficient quantities to meet the requirements of these extra mouths at a time of international economic hardship could multiply the budgetary constraints of refugee-receiving countries in particular.
However, the struggle to secure ‘Bread’ could very well turn out to be universal in scope in view of the current downturn in the world economy. The situation is sufficiently grave to compel the G20 countries to comment, subsequent to a recent summit, that the global economic recovery ‘remains uneven and falls short of our ambition for strong, sustainable and balanced growth.’ The group singled out as risks facing the world economy, the following factors: volatile capital flows, falling commodity prices and rising geopolitical tensions.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, attending the G20 meet, had this to say: ‘We need to redouble our efforts to boost global demand rather than relying on the United States as the consumer of first and last resort.’
Lew could have said the same of China as well. A slowdown in the Chinese economy currently is quite rightly seen as having adverse consequences for the majority of countries, but the Chinese economy too should not be considered as having the sole key to global economic recovery. It is a rise in consumer demand and spending worldwide which could play a lead role in reviving the economic fortunes of the world and governments would do well to think deep on how their economies could be revived through a generation and galvanizing of local consumer demand, rather than be disproportionately concerned about international economic developments, although the latter invariably affect the well being of individual economies. In other words, governments need to be primarily concerned about how ‘Bread’ could be stocked in their larders and evenly distributed among their people.
Accordingly, national economies need to be energized and through such a process, local consumer demand and spending increased and intensified, if the economies in question and the global economy as a whole are to fare better. The greater the purchasing power individually and nationally, the greater would be the need for international trade and commerce.
Therefore, multiplying and intensifying the purchasing power of people through the strengthening of national economies is a leading pathway to stepped-up global growth. Over dependence on this or that major economy for sustained global growth may not prove advisable in view of world economic uncertainties originating in market-led growth. An overlooking of these considerations by governments could very well lead to a worsening of the world economic situation, culminating in recession.
Given the above backdrop, Sri Lanka has done right by entering into a Partnership Dialogue with the US. Sri Lanka cannot afford to miss any opportunities to strengthen cooperative links with the US in particularly the economic field and this facet in US-Sri Lanka ties should be welcomed. It should not be forgotten that the US is a major market for Lankan goods and it stands to reason that Sri Lanka should keep its relations with the US in very good shape.
It is a pragmatic economic policy that would best serve the developing world's interests. The foreign policy of these countries should be oriented on these lines on account of the fact that there are no major political blocs in the world today, as was the case in the Cold War years. We live in a multipolar world political order in which strong ideological considerations no longer carry any decisive weight. However, a country's national interest is of supreme importance to it and the economic well being of a country constitutes an important component of its national interest. But it does not follow that a country should compromise its sovereignty in the pursuit of its national interest.
Therefore, currently, providing 'Bread' sufficiently and equitably, is a supreme duty cast on governments. 'Guns' cannot be bought by states at the cost of 'Bread'. If there isn't sufficient 'Bread' to feed citizens, the world would very soon be having on its hands another financial crisis on the lines of the one that befell it a few years ago.
States also need to think beyond growth to development. It is the latter achievement which endures, while the former is very much dependent on favorable economic forces of a transitory nature. Growth combines with equity in development and this is the best means to 'Bread' that stays.=
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was briefly detained for questioning on Friday in a federal investigation of a vast corruption scheme, fanning a political crisis that threatens to topple his successor, President Dilma Rousseff.
Lula's questioning in police custody was the highest profile development in a two-year-old graft probe centred on the state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, which has rocked Brazil's political and business establishment and deepened the worst recession in decades in Latin America's biggest economy.
The investigation threatens to tarnish the legacy of Brazil's most powerful politician, whose humble roots and anti-poverty programs made him a folk hero, by putting a legal spotlight on how his left-leaning Workers' Party consolidated its position since rising to power 13 years ago.
Police picked up Lula at his home on the outskirts of Sao Paulo and released him after three hours of questioning. They said evidence suggested Lula had received illicit benefits from kickbacks at the oil company, Petrobras, in the form of payments and luxury real estate.
The evidence against the former president brought the graft investigation closer to his protege Rousseff, who is fighting off impeachment for allegedly breaking budget rules, weakening her efforts to pull the economy out of a deepening downturn.
Rousseff expressed her total disagreement with the police questioning of her mentor, saying in a statement it was "unnecessary" after his voluntary testimony. But she repeated her backing for institutions investigating corruption and said the probe must continue until those responsible were punished.
News of Lula's brief detention sparked a rally in Brazilian assets as traders bet that the political upheaval could empower a more market-friendly coalition. The real currency gained 2 percent against the U.S. dollar and the benchmark Bovespa index climbed nearly 4 percent. Shares of the state oil giant Petrobras surged 14 percent.
"Ex-president Lula, besides being party leader, was the one ultimately responsible for the decision on who would be the directors at Petrobras and was one of the main beneficiaries of these crimes," said a police statement on his detention. "There is evidence that the crimes enriched him and financed electoral campaigns and the treasury of his political group."
Lula responded with indignation at an afternoon news conference, slamming investigators for "disrespecting democracy" and running what he called a media circus instead of a serious investigation.
He told supporters at Workers' Party headquarters that he had already answered the questions that police asked him on Friday and reiterated his assertion that he was not the owner of luxury real estate that investigators have suggested he received as bribes.
Rousseff has also repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Her labour minister, Miguel Rossetto, said in a public statement that the detention was "a clear attack on what Lula represents."
"This is not justice, this is violence," he said.
Underscoring the deep political passions surrounding the former president, TV images from the street outside Lula's home on Friday showed his supporters clad in red shirts exchanging chants, insults and even blows with opponents.
Dozens of police arrived to break up the altercations, clearing the street by force. Pro-Lula protesters also gathered in a noisy protest outside federal police offices at a Sao Paulo airport where he was taken for questioning.
"VIOLENCE IN THE STREETS"
As the founder and figurehead of his party, Lula's image has been central to huge street protests over the past year, both for and against Rousseff's impeachment, and powerful unions have marched repeatedly in his name.
BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY-MARCH 4, 2016
When the Women’s Protection Act was passed in Pakistan’s Punjab province’s regional assembly last month, advocates believed it signaled progress for women’s rights in a region that sees thousands of cases of sexual violence reported each year.
The Pakistani religious body that determines whether provincial or federal laws comply with Islam had a different view: the act — which would create new investigation teams, require GPS trackers for sexual offenders, and require jail time for certain domestic abuse cases — was “un-Islamic.”
“The whole law is wrong,” Muhammad Khan Sherani, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology, said at a news conference Thursday. The influential religious body advises legislators before bills are sworn into law, and its members’ opinions have historically influenced public opinion on proposed bills.
The Women’s Protection Act, which would also create a hotline for victims of sexual and domestic abuse, has been condemned by many right-wing clerics who say it directly conflicts with the Quran. On Thursday, Pakistani Supreme Court lawyer Mohammad Aslam Khaki asked the Federal Shariat Court to label the law as offensive to Islam, Pakistan’s state religion. The court makes final decisions on what does and does not constitute as Islamic.
This is far from the first time a law has been condemned by the Council of Islamic Ideology. In January, it blocked a bill that would establish new, stricter punishment for child marriage. And in an earlier case, it ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in cases of rape — which has infuriated human rights activists. Instead, it supported a bill that would require any woman accusing a man of rape to provide the court with at least four male witnesses in order to allow the case to move forward.
The council’s decision this January to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine also angered human rights activists.
Leaders fight to restore confidence in picking presidential nominee but CPAC attendees grow wary of any attempt to rig the nomination process
‘There is no way that the people are not going to decide,’ Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, told CPAC. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/A
House speaker Paul Ryan prepares to speak at the 43rd annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobsin Fort Washington, Maryland, and Sabrina Siddiqui in Detroit
Republican leaders fought to restore confidence in their process for picking a presidential nominee on Friday after an establishment backlash against Donald Trump and another insult-strewn television debate left the party facing unprecedented, and possibly existential, challenges to its unity.
“We are in territory that our party hasn’t seen,” conceded Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), at a meeting of conservative activists gathered outside Washington, when he was asked what would happen if there was no clear winner by the time of this summer’s GOP convention.
Priebus insisted the chances of the race needing to be decided by a so-called “brokered convention” – at which delegates would be freed from voting in line with state primary election results – were just 10-15%, but discussion of an apparent attempt by former nominee Mitt Romney to engineer such a scenario was met with loud boos from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Though strongly supportive of Texas senator Ted Cruz and mostly suspicious of Trump, the audience at CPAC appeared even more skeptical of any attempt to rig the nomination process by party leaders in Washington.
“There is no way that the people are not going to decide,” a defensive Priebus told CPAC. “Whoever the nominee is of our party, they are going to get the full backing and 100% support of the Republican party.”
Shortly after Priebus spoke, Trump announced he had pulled out of a planned appearance at CPAC on Saturday, something organizers claimed amounted to a “clear message to conservatives” and suggested the party was in actual fact now torn in three conflicting directions.
Romney’s dramatic intervention on Thursday – in which he attacked Trump as a “fraud” and urged Republicans to vote for whoever is closest to catching him in individual state primaries – is widely seen as an effort to ensure no candidate reaches the 1,237 delegates needed to secure a first-round victory.
If Marco Rubio is unable to rally enough establishment support to challenge Trump or Cruz, it is possible that Romney or his former running mate, House speaker Paul Ryan, could emerge as alternatives in the convention’s second round, when delegates are released from requirements to vote in accordance with the result of primary elections.
( March 3, 2016, Hong Kong SAR, Sri Lanka Guardian) This week, Just Asia begins with Burma, where four protesters already sentenced by a court in May 2015, are now facing additional charges for the same incident. Burma’s first democratic election of November 2015 has done little to curb rights violations in the country.
Next, the crisis at New Delhi’s Jawarhalal Nehru University (JNU) continues. Five students accused of sedition surrendered to the police in the early hours of Wednesday. To learn more about the situation there, Just Asia talks to JNU students Ms. Anamika Yadav and Tara Shankar.
Moving to Nepal, Just Asia presents excerpts of the speech shared by Devi Sunuwar on her daughter’s 12th death anniversary. Although Nepal’s civil conflict ended in 2006, the plight of conflict victims remains unresolved.
Indonesia is facing severe restrictions on freedom of opinion and assembly, with a recent police regulation on hate speech negatively impacting activists and others. Additionally, at least six political parties have proposed a controversial new bill weakening the existing Corruption Eradication Commission.
From Thailand, Just Asia reports that activists involved in compiling a key torture report were intimidated by the army. A group of uniformed men visited the home of activist Anchana Heemmina, while her elderly mother was home alone. Earlier, a military spokesperson questioned the activists’ investigation of state officers.
Finally, Just Asia covers four cases of human rights violations in its Urgent Appeals Weekly. In Indonesia, 27 persons were arrested and charged for involvement in a peaceful protest. In the Philippines, an indigenous man was killed by members of a paramilitary group in Bukidnon. Separately, the 73rd Infantry Battalion harassed and assaulted indigenous villagers in several incidents. In Nepal, 12 human rights defenders and conflict victims were arrested for demanding justice for Ganga Maya Adhikari.
About the programme: The Asian Human Rights Commission,
Hong Kong based Human Rights monitoring and documenting body, launched the first issue of a weekly roundup of human rights issues on October 14, 2013. Since then they produced over hundred weekly bulletins. The weekly roundup is a news programme which aims to highlight a wide variety of current human rights issues in the Asian region. Important stories of people fighting for improving human rights, both in the civil and political rights sphere as well as economic, social and cultural rights are covered in these weekly roundups and we also often meet survivors of human rights violations, who talk of their experiences. The AHRC hopes that this coverage will contribute to the conversation on human rights issues in the region and will also assist in developing greater solidarity in the struggle to achieve universal human rights.
About the Producer: The programme was the result of the concept introduced and developed by a young Sri Lankan journalist Amila Sampath who studied journalism at the College of Journalism in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has made hundreds of videos for the local NGO, Janasansadaya – The People’s Forum, reporting on torture abuse and other human rights violations from all over Sri Lanka. He subsequently worked as a journalist at Sri Lankan Sirasa TV Channel (news) for two years where he was involved in all aspects of producing news packages and feature reports, before relocating to Hong Kong to join the AHRC. Amila now handles the production, directing and editing of the weekly news roundup, as well as many other video productions in the organisation.”
Needless to say, it is mainly the ordinary people of the OPEC countries who would be badly affected by this oil price drop. Some of the ruling elites of these states, such as those of Saudi Arabia, apparently, know on which side their ‘Bread is buttered’ because they are in league with the West in its current military involvement in Syria. However, for the majority of people in these oil producing countries the pursuit of ‘Bread’ could very well turn out to be a matter of life and death, as is the case for the Venezuelan people, as the oil price crisis begins to kick-in. In Eastern and Southern Africa, children in their hundreds, are dying of malnourishment.
